The End of the Affair

How money lost its meaning; Twilight mania!; two sides of Kosovo’s hero; where’s Stowe?; and more.

Finally, in “Wall Street Lays Another Egg” someone dispels, in an understandable and logical manner, the mystery that is our current sad financial situation, and how it got to be this way. Despite my abject distaste for anything financial in university, I could not put Niall Ferguson’s article down. I hope everyone reading December’s issue got as much out of this timely article as I have! —JESMINA BISEROVIC, Vancouver, British Columbia

THANK YOU for the timely article by Niall Ferguson. Unfortunately, Ferguson has drawn the wrong lessons from history. Aristotle knew that money was not based on a commodity, whether gold, silver, or clam shells. Rather, in his Ethics, he said, “Money exists not by nature, but by law.” His statement reinforced the ideas of his teacher Plato. The Greek city of Sparta and the early Roman Empire are two outstanding examples of successful economies based on the monetary principles of Plato and Aristotle. Our own country first based its monetary system on those ancient principles to win the War of Independence. Great Britain destroyed that currency as a war tactic. Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, and Lincoln all knew the power of money and the crucial difference between it and credit. The substitution of credit for money is the root of our current financial difficulty. The American Monetary Institute and its director, Stephen Zarlenga, have prepared a bill to introduce to Congress that will change our monetary system into one based on money, rather than the debt-and-credit system in place now. —THOMAS GREGORY, Clinton, Mississippi

NIALL FERGUSON’S brilliant article overlooks a significant fact. What is leading to America’s forfeiture of its exclusive reserve currency—enjoyed since the post–World War II Bretton Woods Agreement—is the fiscally irresponsible and chronic deficit spending that has added $9.4 trillion to the national debt over the last 25 years. The Dow Jones industrial average did not climb to 14,000 on a Wall of Fear but on an Ocean of Paper Money. —CARLOS F. CONCHESO, Paris, France

The Beautiful and the Fanged

I WANTED to thank you so much for your feature on Twilight—both the article and photographs were brilliant [“The Twilight Zone,” by James Wolcott, December]. And you went above and beyond with all the extra stuff you provided to the fans at VF.com. You guys rock! —SOPHY PRATT, Perth, Western Australia

I JUST WANT to thank you so much for the amazing article and pictures of the cast of Twilight, which were just breathtaking. I would suggest, though, that next time you have a photograph as sexy and hot as the one of Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson, where he is holding her in his arms, you put that image on the magazine’s cover! Those issues would fly off the shelves. —ANGELA LESLIE, Terre Haute, Indiana

TWILIGHT is this decade’s most popular piece of gothic literature, adored for its take on dark romance and its re-invention of the Byronic hero. Vanity Fair gets extra brownie points for making the Twilight photo shoot look like an Abercrombie ad campaign. —EMILY HONG, Nashville, Tennessee

Kosovo’s Killer Hero

AFTER READING William Langewiesche’s fine article “House of War” [December], I have come to admire Kosovo independence fighter and former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj. He proved once again that he’s one of the most important figures in Kosovo. Not since George Washington hopped into the Delaware has an insurgent made such a big splash. —EVAN DALE SANTOS, Adelanto, California

I FIND IT extraordinary that someone can describe, in great detail, a litany of crimes and violence with such great affection for the perpetrator. “House of War” was a long and unpleasant read—but it reveals how preconceptions can completely warp a mind: the recent happenings in Mumbai are the result of this type of writing and this type of glorification of killers and criminals. Shame on you! —MIODAG NIKOLIC, Los Angeles, California

WILLIAM LANGEWIESCHE is to be commended for his evenhanded assessment of Kosovo-war hero Ramush Haradinaj. It is unfortunate, though, that Langewiesche could not dig deeper into the pretty credible accusations of Haradinaj’s association with organized crime. Considering the dire level of “witness intimidation in Kosovo,” it is probably better left alone. But after the judicial investigations in The Hague, a rather baffling question remains: What force of fate turns one man into a heroic resistance fighter and the other (Slobodan Milošević) into a despicable terrorist? —DAVID LEE, Toronto, Ontario

Slope Scoop

I READ with great interest “Some Like It Haute” [Fanfair, December], about the world’s top mountain restaurants, but was dismayed to see no mention of mountains in the eastern U.S. Stowe’s Mt. Mansfield, located just a few hundred miles north of your editorial offices in New York City, is the highest peak in Vermont, and Stowe Mountain Resort’s Cliff House Restaurant sits at the top, serviced by the gondola. There was mention of nine western resorts, all deserving, but a nod to your northern neighbors may have been appropriate. Panoramic views, rustic Vermont cuisine created with the freshest seasonal and artisan ingredients, plus the Cliff House Summit Series Dinners, which thematically celebrate local, sustainable cuisine, equal a superlative mountain restaurant. —JO SABEL COURTNEY, P.R. manager for the Stowe Area Association, Stowe, Vermont

Anatomy of a Photograph

YOU PUBLISHED a photograph of Louisville, Kentucky, taken in 1937, to illustrate Joseph E. Stiglitz’s “Reversal of Fortune” [November], about the U.S. economy going on life support. It shows a group of African Americans in a line with baskets and pails waiting for food and water. The caption reads “Past as Prologue.” I do not dispute the contents of the article; however, in 1937, the Louisville area was hit with a devastating flood, a once-in-a-thousand-years type of disaster. You can drive around town now and see the flood walls constructed afterward to prevent that type of disaster from happening again. I submit that the photo does not reflect a sour economy but rather a natural disaster of mammoth proportions. Please in the future choose photographs that fit with the article’s theme, not ones that are taken out of context. —MARY ANNE HOUSEL, Marysville, Ohio

No Town Like Motown

THANK YOU for the article and photographs on Motown [“It Happened in Hitsville,” by Lisa Robinson, December]. The music’s impact on pop culture was defining at the time and remains relevant. For many of us, the last 50 years without a Motown soundtrack is unimaginable. —JOHN CHELLINO, Miami, Florida

VANITY FAIR’s characterization of Florence Ballard’s drinking as the sole reason for her departure from the Supremes was upsetting and misleading. I dated Florence from January 1966, when we met in Puerto Rico, where they were performing and I was celebrating my 20th birthday, until after my graduation from college, in 1967. Anyone close to the group during that period saw Berry Gordy maneuvering to make Diana Ross a solo act. Diana even alluded to this in a conversation she had with me in the dressing room at the Copacabana nightclub, in New York. When I went off to the Middle East, shortly after the Six-Day War, in June 1967, Florence called my home and, in my absence, complained bitterly to my father that they were changing the name of the group to Diana Ross and the Supremes. My father said she sounded drunk. You owe Florence and her daughters, who still live in Detroit, an apology. —ROGER PEARSON, Greenwich, Connecticut

WHILE I ENJOYED “It Happened in Hitsville,” I would like to draw readers’ attention to Dusty Springfield, who played a major part in popularizing the sound of Motown in the United Kingdom. Springfield was instrumental in helping to bring attention to artists such as Martha and the Vandellas not only by covering Motown songs herself but also by hosting a program devoted entirely to Motown and its stars. Indeed, the friendship between Springfield and Martha Reeves endured until Springfield died, in March 1999. —TRACY AITKEN, North Yorkshire, England

YOU COULD HAVE given the whole December issue over to Lisa Robinson’s oral history of Motown. Wow! —STEVEN P. CAPWELL, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania